us only over beast, fish, fowl,
Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his donation. But man over man
He made not lord; such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free."

MILTON.

My wife and myself were born in different towns in the State of
Georgia, which is one of the principal slave States. It is true, our
condition as slaves was not by any means the worst; but the mere idea
that we were held as chattels, and deprived of all legal rights--the
thought that we had to give up our hard earnings to a tyrant, to enable
him to live in idleness and luxury--the thought that we could not call
the bones and sinews that God gave us our own: but above all, the fact
that another man had the power to tear from our cradle the new-born
babe and sell it in the shambles like a brute, and then scourge us if
we dared to lift a finger to save it from such a fate, haunted us for
years.

But in December, 1848, a plan suggested itself that proved quite
successful, and in eight days after it was first thought of we were
free from the horrible trammels of slavery, rejoicing and praising God
in the glorious sunshine of liberty.

My wife's first master was her father, and her mother his slave, and
the latter is still the slave of his widow.

Notwithstanding my wife being of African extraction on her mother's
side, she is almost white--in fact, she is so nearly so that the
tyrannical old lady to whom she first belonged became so annoyed, at
finding her frequently mistaken for a child of the family, that she
gave her when eleven years of age to a daughter, as a wedding present.
This separated my wife from her mother, and also from several other
dear friends. But the incessant cruelty of her old mistress made the
change of owners or treatment so desirable, that she did not grumble
much at this cruel separation.

It may be remembered that slavery in America is not at all confined to
persons of any particular complexion; there are a very large number of
slaves as white as any one; but as the evidence of a slave is not
admitted in court against a free white person, it is almost impossible
for a white child, after having been kidnapped and sold into or reduced
to slavery, in a part of the country where it is not known (as often is
the case), ever to recover its freedom.

I have myself conversed with several slaves who told me that their
parents were white and free; but that they were stolen away from them
and